The BI Mountain: You Don’t Need to Climb it Just Because it’s There

by Dashboard Insight, Dashboard InsightMonday, November 4, 2013

Nathan Roberson, Technology, Data and Social Media Editor-at-Large for The Marketing Robot, writes for Business2Community on why just because you have access to all of this information now doesn't necessarily mean that you need to have it all.

The further we go down the winding road of business intelligence, the further away from the key objective many of us get. Someone once said, “The further I go, the less I know.” That sentiment in a lot of ways is very relatable to the field of business intelligence right now. But why?

A lot of it has to do with wielding profound power for the first time. By having all kinds of new information at your fingertips that you have never been privy to before, or at least previously in a much more limited fashion, you may get a little drunk with power and wind up in a time suck not unlike the intern down the hall cruising Facebook. Business managers facing analytics dashboards for the first time may find themselves caught in a maze of delight—“It’s everything I ever dreamed of, and it’s all right here!” he or she may marvel. But all marvels aside, this is not Mount Everest—you don’t need to climb it just because it’s there.